Keywords:
digital games, education games, game culture, gender, hard core gamer, queer
Abstract
Prior feminist studies in the field of digital education focus primarily on the need to retrain teachers and the need to attract women to programming. Digital games have been a part of both formal and informal education processes for several decades. Despite their longstanding prominence, the potential for gender education has not yet been fully explored. The paper focuses on specific games and uses content analysis to focus on the interactive, narrative and audiovisual components of digital games and on individual motifs or mechanics that are associated with appropriate feminist themes. The main aim of the article is to showcase the abilities and limits of educational digital games created by independent developers to teach players within the gaming community about topics of sexuality. The text also shows how individual games can help in the field of gender education. At the same time, by examining the game market, we estimate what possibilities independent educational games have for reaching audiences in gaming culture.
Author Biographies
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Veronika Šašalová, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava
Veronika Šašalová is a PhD. candidate who has been working at the Faculty of Mass Media Communication of University of Ss. Cyril and Methodus in Trnava since 2022. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree at the Prague School of Creative Communication, specialising in creative writing, and pursued her Master’s education at Masaryk University in Brno on the Literature and Intercultural Communication programme, where she focused on media and their sociocultural context. In her research, she focuses on independentand indie game development and the ways in which digital games contribute to feminist and ecocritical discourse. Additionally, she is interested in the intersection of game and literary studies, particularly through the exploration of specific narrative strategies in digital games and creative approaches that allow gaming titles to be perceived not only as products but as works of art.
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Miroslav Macák, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava
Miroslav Macák is currently an assistant professor at the Faculty of Mass Media Communication UCM in Trnava, Slovakia. He received his doctoral degree at the same institution from the digital game theory programme. The main topic of his scientific research is the industry of digital games. He is predominantly interested in Japanese game production. He also focuses on mainstream, AA and independent production of digital games, stories in digital games, game genres,and trends in the digital game industry (technological, narrative and design). His most recent overview of the digital games industry and its parallels with other media industries has been published in the book Synergia odvetví globalizovaného mediálneho priemyslu (Synergy of Globalised Media Industry Segments).
Section
Theoretical studies
How to Cite
Veronika Šašalová, & Miroslav Macák. (2025). Digital Games as a Tool for Gender Education: The Position of Educational Games and Independent Works in the Gaming Market.
Communication Today,
16(1).
https://doi.org/10.0000/zgdpy559
